At $13.5 mil per year I'll settle for 12 boards a game instead of 15.
If we can pay Rod Stuckey 9 million to do whatever it is that he does to help the Pistons succeed, I think that we can get by with paying Kevin Love at his current rate.

TaS, are you advocating that a Moose-Maggette for Love is a bad trade? That you'd rather keep Moose over Love?

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You have to consider the alternatives.

We have Maggette expiring, so that is $11M/year freed up. We have other expirings. Can you buy another rebounder/ scorer for a better value? Not sure.

We also have Monroe locked in for a very low value for another 1-2 years. He brings a lot of value for $4M/year that you'd be missing.

Pekovic for example is getting paid $4.6M this year and he is the guy that is getting his rebs stolen. He averages 17 pts/ 9 rebs per 36 for his career, all while playing with Love. .585 TS% lifetime. I'd rather pick up Pek for $8MM next year than trade our expiring and our undervalued young big man for a guy who is guaranteed $14.7, $15.7, and $16.7 for the next few years.

So, Drummond/ Monroe/ Pekovic for $16M > Drummond/ Love for $19M IMO

I have no problem with us picking up Love if that is determined to be the best bang for the buck. But just consider what we'd be giving up to get him. A ton of cap space and one of the best players from a recent draft.

Also, I'm a little partial to Monroe's passing ability. I can envision it being a unique weapon by the time we're a contender again.

Just a couple other stats:

With Love on the court the team looks like this:
eFG%- 46.3
eFG% allowed- 48.6
block rate- 4%

Without him:
eFG%- 46.5
eFG% allowed- 45.6
block rate- 9%

He's just not making his team better like other MVP candidates. They seem to be worse with him overall than without him.

Thanks for the detailed explanation TaS. You make some very good points.

The thing that's intriguing about Kevin Love is that he's still young. Also, even if you can get better production out of Pek/Dre/Moose than you would out of Dre/Love, that trio is less likely to attract big name FAs.

Pekovic in an interesting target though. Kinda like how Marcin Gortat became a better player once he got out of Howard's shadow, or how Asik is playing so much better in Houston after being Noah's backup in Chicago.

The Timberwolves are notorious for dumping their star players. KG and Al Jefferson were moved and I don't think the deals made for either of those guy's broke the bank or were monster deals where tons of talent was given to the Timberwolves. They want cheap talent and draft picks.

I think Monroe and a # 1 pick would get the negotiations pretty serious. Gores opening up his wallet and putting cash in the deal as well could not hurt. We might even need to involve another team and buy a another lower 1st round pick to put in the deal. The Pistons need to get creative. We need a star player and a player that averages 20 plus a game.

The biggest issue is Joe D. being willing to make the deal and not continue to be so in love with his roster that he over looks a deal that would make the team better. I am also not sure what Gores intentions are with the team. Is he a poser or is he a serious owner? There are plenty of guy's that just own teams just because they can and can care less about winning. I am not sure what type of owner Gores is. So far he is not showing me much.

Pek lives in the paint, so probably not the best pairing with Drummond. But he'd be killer off the bench if we had all 3 of them. Not wise to pay that much for that though.

With Love, do you really want your big man taking 13 shots from outside the paint per game at a .331 eFG apart from the 10 other shots that he gets in the paint? That is just some serious ball hogging. His usage is 30.8%. Will Bynum's is only 22.9% for comparison and it seems like he shoots every single time.

(all per 36 min. FGA's = FGA + .5*FTA to show total possessions where they took a shot.)

TS% comparisons:
Kevin Martin- .656 (#2)
Tyson Chandler- .724 (#1)
I show them both because KM is the tops of guys who shoot 3's and Tyson shows pure efficiency by staying in the paint.

To me, efficiency can suffer a little with volume and still benefit the team, but Love is outside of the acceptable range right now. Love scores more, but does it way less efficiently than our current bigs. He seems to have an edge over the 19 year old in rebounding, but when Love was 20 years old, he rebounded at a rate of 12.9 per 36 min, or about the same as Drummond right now. Monroe is almost twice the passer as Love and does it with a better ast/tov ratio. Both Monroe and Drummond steal the ball way more often. On the block front, Monroe is almost TWICE the shot blocker that Love is and Drummond is SIX TIMES the shot blocker... not sure how you can get all those boards without being able to block shots better than Moose. The salaries where the real problem lies.

By the way, Kobe will get $30M next year! Ouch.

On the Timberwolves, they have Rubio, Brandon Roy, and Chase Budinger all in street clothes due to knee surgeries. They should be much better when Rubio returns.

Looking solely at production GM and Pek have to clearly outproduce Love to make that a better choice. For a contender a 90 cent bill is better than two 50 cent coins (not a Stuckey reference) because you can only have 5 players on the floor at once.

I would start by dangling Monroe, Stuckey, and Maggette for Love, Roy, and Stiemsma. I don't know if Minnesota would jump at that, but they might consider it if they suspect that he is going to start demanding a trade. I'd be willing to go up to the first first-rounder the Bobcats don't get.

* I know Roy is a risk given his degenerative knee condition, but the hope would be that if he gets a total knee replacement, Kander can work his magic and turn him into a serviceable backup. Your shot is still your shot, and having a guy like that on the team provides some really positive veteran leadership.

They just got outblocked 13-0 last night against a team without a good center or a physical PF. Still, I'd consider that.

Love's biggest weakness is paint protection, and he has scoring ability with range, so he might be the perfect guy to pair with Drummond. We'd be paying for some rebounding redundancy between them both, so you'd want to stagger them a bit too.

Hmm.. I don't know if trading Monroe for Love is the answer. One thing that people don't put into equation is chemistry and so far it looks like they're starting to look at Monroe as the leader of the team and him and Drummond are developing a brotherhood mentality. We take that away and we have to restart the whole process without an assured outcome.

Hmm.. I don't know if trading Monroe for Love is the answer. One thing that people don't put into equation is chemistry and so far it looks like they're starting to look at Monroe as the leader of the team and him and Drummond are developing a brotherhood mentality. We take that away and we have to restart the whole process without an assured outcome.

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What's the assured outcome now? Everyone taking plays off on D to have time to complain at the ref?

What's the assured outcome now? Everyone taking plays off on D to have time to complain at the ref?

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I see your point. However, my train of thought was that if he wasn't happy in Minnesota (with Rubio) I don't think he'll be happy in Detroit either. At least Monroe has accepted that they're in a rebuilding process and I think a Drummond/Monroe combination is better than a Love/Drummond combo because Love needs the basketball and he is not the same set up artist like Monroe.